The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1887-06-30
JOB MOSE9 MILLIONS.
STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE
BRADFORD OIL FIELDS.

How Rochester Pill Man Found
Financial Suecess-Pushing the Drill
in the Valley-Going 200 Feet Deeper.
The Flood.
Job Moses was a country boy, born some
where up about Leroy, N. Y, who drifted
into Rochester, while still in his teens, to
make his fortune In 1862 he had made it,
and big one, out OF a patent pill that he or
some one else had invented. About that time
Oil Creek was in its glory, and the news
papers teemed with accounts of the fortunes
| to be made out of OIL The stories fired the
imagination of the Rochester pill man, and
he determined to try his hand at the new
source of wealth.
Upin the northern part of Mexican county,
this state, and the southern part of Cattarau-
gus county, N. Y, lies valley which was
then and is yet one of the widest and most
forsaken sections of country to- be found east
Of the Mississippi. Through this valley, then
given up to numbering, Charles Minot, who
used to conduct the Erie road sometimes for
profit, but mostly for pleasure and glory, had
for some reason built branch road which
ran through Bradford-which then boosted
three houses, blacksmith shop, q school
house and tavern-and terminated at the
little lumber camp of Gilesville.
Job Moses looked over the field, studied the
maps and finally made up his mind that the
valley through which Minot's little railroad
ran was underlaid with one vast sea of oil.
As time passed on he became as certain as
fate that his conclusions were right. One
day he showed up in Bradford, leased some
thousands of acres, and soon had well under
way. The simple minded natives, who had
thought him eccentric from the first, set him
down as a lunatic when he told them that
the earnings of the railroad which ran past
their door would soon be increased twenty
fold, and to this opinion they chung for many
long year.
PUSHING THE DRILL.
When Moses began pushing the drill in the
valley many of the oil kings of to-day were
unknown and unheard Of @John D. RocLa-
Teller, Oliver Fl. Payne and Bill Thompson
had not yet matured their plans. Dan O'Day
and H. L. Taylor would have looked upon
$1,000 as fortune. Peter Grace and Capt.
j. j. Vandergrift had not yet returned from
the war. Col. Dyer was on a farm down in
Maine. The Mobiles, now the Standard Oil
SOlllpdiy VI lGuSsltt, "Olo IuuhluB DhIelo Ill
Pittsburg. Lem and Ike Willets were cutting
logs up in Allegany county, and Charley
Young was working for them at $40 month.
The Fishers and Phillips had their fortunes to
make, while Joe Craig was not yet out of the
primer, and John McKeown was still dress
ing tools along the creek
For twelve years Job Moses, with logged
resolution, sunk hole after hole in his leases,
but with no show of oil. Then he woke up
one morning to find that the thousands he
had made out Of pills in Rochester had van
ished into the holes he had been punching
in the woods and fields about Bradford, and
that he was a poor man. Disappointed, but
not discouraged, he went to New York, and
with an eloquence born Of earnestness sue
ceeded in obtaining from the capitalists who
gave him hearing money with which to
continue his search. This was in 1875. Once
back on his field Of operations new idea
struck him. Up to that time he had drilled
all of his wells only 900 feet deep, the hor-
lion at which oil was found along the creek.
Perhaps there might be a producing sand
still further down. He sunk one of his wells
200 feet deeper, and was rewarded with 6,
fifty barrel producer. Another and another
told the same or better story. Moses had
found the oil field for which he had so long
been searching Every well he sunk gave
him rich returns The news of his success
spread abroad and the tide of oildom turned
slowly toward Brodford. A year later it had
increased to a flood, and the fact was freely
admitted that no such field had ever been
struck before. Lands which two years before
had been almost worthless sold for more than
princes ransom. But Moses had it all IN
der lease and was able to make his own
terms. His thirteen years of waiting Melted
him millions. He lives in New York now,
enjoys life, and always has spare $50 to loan
to any of the boys who happen to get broke in
the metropolis. philadelphia Times.